


When Words Cease to Be

by Kestrelshade



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25720825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kestrelshade/pseuds/Kestrelshade
Summary: After tragedy strikes in the ruin of Fahlbtharz, Faendal realizes that not everything is meant to last forever.
Relationships: Faendal (Elder Scrolls)/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	When Words Cease to Be

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Paunchy for being a wonderful beta, as always!

He's growing weaker. We don't have much time. I fear we can only make him comfortable before-

The healer was wrong. I slammed my fist into the wall. She jumped.

"Get out. I don't want to hear your bullshit," I snarled. Her mouth set into a thin line and she nodded, collecting her supplies. She left our home without a word. 

Our healer was used to the grieving. I hated calling myself that. Grieving. After all, Kelus was still alive. 

But for how much longer? My knuckles were already bruising.

Kelus would never go to another Dwemer ruin again. My heart broke just thinking about it.

He could barely move around the house without my help. Moving to his workshop strained his fragile body. Not that it would have mattered; he couldn’t lift heavy machinery anymore. Kelus had lost weight. The darkness under his eyes lengthened like evening shadows. 

The workshop was too far for him to walk these days. Many hours were spent on the porch, rocking in his chair. I never knew what he was thinking when he stared out at the Sea of Ghosts. His eyes were flat and dim, yet I believed they saw everything. 

He wrote in a bound book, quill scratching the surface. Observations? Invention ideas? I had not a clue. 

He wrote, blotting out the world with ink.

I pretended not to see him drop his goggles when he took them off for the night. The lenses had cracked, once. No. Shattered. Even the strongest glass cannot withstand the overpowering force of steam and metal. Bones never stood a chance. He certainly didn’t, not against a centurion. 

Kelus looked at me sometimes, in these rare moments without pain, and I’d remember the first time we met. Anyone who stormed into Riverwood yelling about fire-breathing lizards would make an impression.

I didn’t know just how much he would mean to me. Blinded by fear, he collapsed at the entrance to the village. Wild and spooked, I couldn’t help but see a frightened creature.

I had to help him, and I took him in. 

He had the same expression when we found him lying broken outside Fahlbtharz: wrestling with pain that went deeper than his flesh, deep into the ruins of his heart.

You’re chasing a past that no longer exists.

No, Faendal, I’m sealing it away. I must move forward.

Ata’s gone, Kelus. He’s never coming back.

Kelus paused in the doorway. I want to prove I’m a better mer than he ever was.

Better mer don’t leave the living behind.

Kelus left in the night. I should have gone with him. He’s been haunted by ghosts for too long. 

Kelus didn’t return that day, or the next afternoon. Which was not unusual; he spent his time in the ruins, thoroughly sweeping the area for scrap metal and other treasures. He built his arm that way. The ruins were his life. Knowing Kelus, it likely never occurred to him that they would be his undoing.

Pain became his existence. Could I ask the gods to take it away? I would do anything to take his place. He would look at me, when he couldn’t breathe or move, and I knew he didn’t recognize me.

The day had been unkind to Kelus. I know I’m a Dunmer, but I shouldn’t feel like I’m on fire, right? Kelus joked to cope with the pain, but instead of amusement, all I could see was a tired mer, aged before his time. The flames were dying.

Eithne and Riley avoided his bedroom, where he rested more days than not. Our children were not allowed to speak with him when the healer and I carried his broken body home. I would not let them see their Da so small and pitiful, his cries loud enough to wake the ancestral dead. 

I still couldn’t believe the mer who wailed as the healer reset his bones was the same hero who saved the world from destruction. He couldn’t save himself. I bit my cheek, my teeth piercing the flesh. The truth tasted of metal on my tongue. Who knew the truth tasted like blood?

Kelus didn’t get out of bed this morning. I stayed with him, resting on his chest, the summer rains drowning out his heartbeat. The world outside could wait. 

Weakening. Panic. Faendal, I can’t write anymore. My hand---

Couldn’t hold a quill anymore. Too shaky, too weak.

The wicker chair at his bedside cracked under my shifting weight. I watched Kelus’ every movement, with the book in my lap and a quill in hand. He had a story to tell, and it could not go unfinished. Now was the time to listen. I protested when he'd given me the book, calling him overdramatic, but now I knew we were running out of time. 

All stories must end, Fae. 

I know, but I don’t want it to be ours. 

Kelus, propped up in bed with pillows, sat as straight as he could for someone so frail. His brow wrinkled with everything he struggled to say. I had stopped trying to give him ideas for the next thing to say. He needed to do this for himself. Nobody was going to take his voice from him, especially not me. 

One could say the world began with two boys, as different as night and day. Dunmer and Imperial. Inventor and Thief. They called themselves friends, and believed they had invented the very concept. Perhaps they were right; they had, in a sense. The world was theirs for the taking, an unexplored land, dangerous and mysterious. Every day, a summer without end, bare feet splashing through the Sea of Ghosts, cries of joyous delight ringing clear in the neverending skies. 

But like summer passes into autumn, boys must cast aside the sleepy haze of youth. They were separated, by family, time, and circumstance. In the cloak of midnight, the Dunmer youth was spirited away from his dearest friend by his inventor father. The string of fate connecting the friends threatened to sever the further it traveled. Let the world strangle itself with the thread, for my world is gone, the Thief cursed to the wind, falling to his knees.

Years passed. The thread grew weaker. The summer days were but a distant memory, an echo of a better place that never was.

Without his friend, the Dunmer youth was lost. Fate forced him to take up his father’s mantle after the ruins claimed him too soon. Ruin became him, the earth crumbling beneath his feet. Who knew that a shadow could be so oppressive?

The Thief could steal many things, but not time. He would do anything to steal back those precious moments in the sun. His friend’s laughter was brighter than any ray of light.

Fate would keep them apart no longer. The stars intermingled and took pity on the boys. Through fire and ice, their paths were always destined to cross again.

Dragonfire bloomed in the land of ice and snow. 

Kelus coughed with such force, I worried his ribs might crack. He wasn’t the Dragonborn, who could kill by raising his voice, but he could have been, in another life. Just not this one.

I rushed to his side, rubbing his back to soothe the coughing. “Do you need to take a break?”

He shook his head, voice strained, “No. We don’t have time.” 

I watched him with uncertainty. “Are you sure?”

“Go,” he said, nodding to the chair. “I’ll be fine.”

We both knew he was lying. I sat down in the chair anyway. 

Kelus smiled at me fondly. “You make an excellent scribe, Fae.” 

Then why did it feel like I was writing his ending for him?

He resumed his story, and I tried not to notice his voice wavering. 

The boys, now grown man and mer, were reunited through the blaze. Neither recognized the other. The Inventor’s mind, the only power he possessed, stolen from him; his memories torn asunder. Our Thief, in turn, robbed of seeing his friend grow alongside him. He did not see the echoes of a face from his youth in the mer’s features. 

They fled from the dragon and themselves, arriving in the village known simply as Riverwood. The villagers were unaware of the danger they faced, and the world hung in the balance. Riverwood would have been blissfully ignorant to their plight if the Thief and Inventor never sounded the alarm. 

Riverwood barely escaped immolation.

Had it not been for the Inventor and Thief, the obsidian dragon would still soar the skies unimpeded, leaving charred bodies and husks of villages behind.

However, there was another: the Archer. The Bosmer hunted game for the village and worked tirelessly at the mill. Bold and self-assured, he carried the weight of Riverwood’s prosperity on his shoulders. He took interest in the Inventor and his friend. More than interest, the Inventor secretly hoped. Alas, his eyes were on another, an Imperial woman who hailed from Cyrodiil. The Inventor knew he wouldn’t catch his eye in the same way she could.

The Archer took pity on the Inventor and invited him into his hearth and home. His generosity was beyond measure, and an unlikely friendship formed. For the first time in years, the Inventor had a companion. The quiet Inventor found a kindred spirit in the lively Archer. This companionship grew into something more, but neither would acknowledge the existence of these feelings. Doomed to unrequited love, the Inventor tried to harden his heart again, to no avail. 

His feelings didn’t matter. There were dragons to slay, for the first time in centuries. Matters of the heart were of no consequence. 

Meanwhile, the Thief learned he could speak the language of dragons. The world turned to him for help against this great evil.

Another cough wracked his frame, interrupting the story. I held a glass of water to his lips. He swallowed. Hands trembling, Kelus paused long enough to make me worry. “Everything alright?” A stupid question. I knew it wasn’t. He wouldn’t be laying in bed, telling this story like his life depended on it otherwise. 

“My voice gave out. I think I’m done for the day.” 

Mornings were usually better for him. Ironic, considering he liked to work late into the night. The only time he saw sunrise was when he stayed up, not noticing the passage of time. He woke up earlier these days.

On good days, he was able to tell his story for longer stretches of time, but those were becoming rare. I was having to go into town for ink less frequently. 

There were the gloomy days. He would be lost in thought on the porch, a blanket wrapped around him. Kelus didn’t hear me when I called his name. The tea I brewed for his cough grew cold on the kitchen table. 

Kelus felt well enough to sit outside in a chair, the sea breeze ruffling his hair. I looked forward to these days where no work needed to be done, and we could just...be. He insisted that we should write. 

The trio set out on a journey to save the world, and in doing so, became the world to each other. Even dragons and the world ending could not stop affection from growing like moss on a tundra rock. Companionship helped them weather the cold winter nights. 

The Inventor fell in love with Skyrim and the Archer.

The story had long since stopped mattering. I wrote only because it mattered to him.

Kelus was in pain the entire day. No, I corrected myself, he’s been in pain for a while. The healer stopped by the house. She gave me a look before leaving. 

It’s time. 

He wanted me to stay by his side, so I did. 

Masser and Secunda were full in the sky that hot summer night. Moonlight shone through our window, left open just a crack to keep us cool. Ash hoppers chirped somewhere outside. The summer heat was the least of my worries right now. Kelus waited for me to crawl into bed. 

“How are you holding up?” 

Kelus gave a weak, exhausted laugh. “I’d be surprised if any part of me is holding up anymore.” 

Oh. As if I could forget. I sucked in my teeth, taking in Kelus’ sunken face. “You made it through the day. I’m proud of you.” He winced and coughed again, but said nothing. I sat up, placing pillows between my back and the headboard. Shifting closer, I pulled him into my arms. Kelus rested his head on my chest while I stroked his hair. 

His breath rattled. The only thing I could do for him was gently rub his back. I never wanted to let him go. Not so soon; I thought we would have more time. Kelus’ breathing slowed. My heart almost stopped. “Kel?”

“I’m here, Fae,” he said quietly. Just that reassurance allowed me to breathe normally again. Kelus clung to my chest and I wanted so badly to keep him safe, to comfort him. I could only do one of those things, and so I held him. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask. How does the story end?” We both knew how it ended. I wanted to hear his voice.

“Do you really want to know?” He shifted in my arms to get a better look at me. Kelus’ eyes were less dull than they had been in ages.

“Yes, of course. I like hearing your stories.”

Kelus sighed, leaning into my touch. “Alright, I‘ll tell you.”

He told me an unbelievable story that night; not one that ended in tragedy, but victory. How the world was saved by a man who could speak to dragons; a tale where man and mer fought back against a dragon and won, at great sacrifice. The mer who could barely remember his own past, who lost an arm while defending the Dragonborn. His friend. A story about how love was enough to conquer evil. 

What he didn’t say was the part which came after, the endless days and nights of pain. The nightmares, burned behind his eyelids. Rismer, the Dragonborn, his best friend, parting ways with him. The Dragonborn had his fair share of adventure, longing to put that life behind him, even if that meant leaving. Kelus was used to people leaving. He could handle it, or so he thought. The ice around his heart did not thaw for some time. 

Alduin was dead, but I still saw him reflected in Kel’s sleepless eyes. 

He broke down crying in my arms. Nothing about this was alright, and so we didn’t pretend. We wept until the storms in our eyes passed, and I kissed him. I never wanted to stop kissing Kelus. My Kel. 

“You are my heart. Thank you for being mine.” Kelus would say I was being poetic, but I didn’t care at this point. He needed to hear me, and he quietly listened as he always did, holding me tight. “I love you, I love you, I love you (I always will),” I said, stroking his hair, kissing his temples again and again. 

He responded in the only way he knew how, stating the obvious. I always knew what he meant. Kelus settled on his side to look at me. “The children are going to have a busy day tomorrow, I take it?”

“They are. A very long day ahead of them. And you?”

“What about me, Fae? You still have those bows to work on, correct?”

“Yes, I do. I’m almost done crafting something for you, too.”

Kelus’ eyes were dark and unreadable. “Show me tomorrow.” 

My heart was breaking. Why were we having a conversation like normal when we didn’t have time? We didn’t have enough gods-damned time.

"And what do you have planned?" My tearstained face was beginning to dry. 

“The usual, fixing up some old machinery. You saw my newest invention, didn’t you?” His newest invention hadn’t been touched in months, covered up with a tarp in his workshop. 

“I did. Still haven’t figured out what it’s supposed to do.”

His eyes sparkled the way they did when he went off on a lecture. I would miss them. “Who knows? That’s the exciting part. It wouldn’t be Dwemer-made if-”

“If there wasn’t some mystery to be solved.” I repeated the words he had said millions of times. I wanted to hear these words a million more. 

Kelus laughed fondly, kissing my forehead. “There’s always a mystery. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” He looked into my eyes again, “You’re the biggest mystery to me.”

I held back a sob, “Am I, really?” 

He smoothed a strand of hair away from my face. “I wish I had more time to know you. A lifetime is not enough.”

I hope to see you in the next, is what he didn’t say. I would be waiting for him. For eternity, without question. 

I was used to seeing fear in his eyes, more than I had ever wanted to see in my life. 

The way he looked at me, with his small smile illuminated in the moonlight, I knew that everything would be okay again. One day. The eyes I saw now? These eyes were no longer scared. 

Kelus held my hand, kissing my wrist. “Fae…” 

I swallowed, not trusting myself to speak without choking on the words, but I had to try. “Yes, Kel?”

“Faendal, you’re a brave mer. You may think this to be the case, but your story isn’t over yet. Have a good night.” I thought I heard a quiet, “I love you, Fae,” before he drifted off to sleep. I couldn’t be sure.

“Goodnight, Kel. I love you,” I whispered, closing my eyes. Our fingers were interlaced as we fell asleep. 

I woke up that morning, his hand still in mine, and I knew.

Pale morning sunlight streamed through our window, dust motes dancing in the rays. Where the moons’ silver beams framed his face the night before, the golden sun now shone on his still face. His hand curled tightly into my own during the night, never letting go. Until the end of his days, as he had promised. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, he told me once. Kelus was lucky in that respect, because he had. 

I gently unwound my fingers from his. The hand was warm; it hadn’t been long since…

Leaning in, I kissed his hair. Kelus didn’t stir, and he wouldn’t again. I curled up next to him and stayed in bed a while longer. 

Time passed, but not enough to put miles of distance between us. I stood on the porch, staring out at the sea like he did when he was thinking too hard, the gears turning in his brilliant mind. Absently scratching my face, I realized I hadn’t shaved in a while. Kelus would have teased me for how scruffy I had become, which was saying something. He rarely ever shaved, his stubble making him appear older than he actually was. Sighing, I folded my arms over the railing, watching the gray, choppy sea. The tide was coming in. 

A storm brewed on the horizon, the sky oily black. The sea churned in the distance. My tied hair caught the breeze, strands whipping in my face. Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

Lightning? 

No.

There comes a certain relief when you’re finally alone with someone you love. All defenses drop, a breath exhaled. 

“Kel, is that you?” I didn’t look. I refused to hurt myself anymore. 

The floorboards creaked. They did that whenever there was a storm coming. 

A gust of wind blew, then slowed, like the rise and fall of a chest. The sleepiness of a summer storm, gray and melancholy. Knowing you would never feel this same moment twice. 

Knowing the storm would pass. 

He wrapped his arms around me from behind, burying his nose in my neck. The warmth of him pressed against my back. There was an ache in my breast that swelled with the sea.

"I miss you, Kel."

Kelus doesn't respond. Nothing new. He never did. His warmth was gone, like he never existed. I feared that I would never feel warm again. 

“I wish you were here, I truly do.” 

Thunder rumbled in the distance like Kelus’ voice in his chest when he held me in his arms. I took that as my answer. He had been here, in a sense. At least that’s what I told myself. The breeze became cold again. I shivered, deciding to go inside. 

I kept the book in his old desk drawer for safekeeping. It had been moons since I opened its pages. There were times where I wanted to chuck it into the fire, to leave it unfinished. I couldn’t do that to Kelus. 

He needed me to continue. To keep living, telling our story for as long as people had ears to hear it. Kelus would like that. 

Sitting down at the desk, I cracked open the book, and began to write.

Outside, it started to rain.


End file.
